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I hope this isn't a hint that they're going to re-use the GyGor torso again to make "Red Beast." However, I would love a red colored Beast Man to match his appearance in the mini comic "He-Man and the Power Sword."

"I reject your Prince Adam and replace him with the original barbarian from the jungle."

Slowly I went through each box. As I said, most of it was useless for MOTU research, but I did find some amazing gems. One box had tons of prelim notes and research material on what would make a good boys' toy line.

I recall reading in an article in a news magazine back when the line was first getting popular that alluded to this, saying Mattel had researched and polled to find out what kids wanted in a toy line, everything from the type of storyline down to the favorite hair color. Interesting to see confirmation that Mattel did, indeed, do their homework developing the line back in the day.

"I will use this power for all the good that can be done, to work for peace, to encourage virtue, and above all, to preserve life in all its forms..." Superman

My beef with character names like 'Raqquill Rqazz' is that when you look at the name on paper, you scratch your head as to how it should be pronounced. Some people may enjoy trying to figure it out, but I personally find it annoying. Scott was kind enough to write down in his blog how to pronounce it (Ra-KILL Ra-Kazzz). To keep it simple, I think they should have just printed the name in the bio as Ra'Kill Ra'Kazzz in the first place.

My beef with character names like 'Raqquill Rqazz' is that when you look at the name on paper, you scratch your head as to how it should be pronounced. Some people may enjoy trying to figure it out, but I personally find it annoying. Scott was kind enough to write down in his blog how to pronounce it (Ra-KILL Ra-Kazzz). To keep it simple, I think they should have just printed the name in the bio as Ra'Kill Ra'Kazzz in the first place.

My problem with that name is that it's essentially trying to write out a random sound (like bamf, snikt or kapow in comics), not a name. I think there are better ways to make an exotic or bestial sounding name. Also whenever I see 'Raqquill' my mind just pictures it as 'Beast Man. Real Name: Raquel Welch'. I'm not against real names in bios, but some of them do leave me scratching my head.

I appreciate the effort and the inside look, but IMO these "Blogs" just strike me as too historical revisionist for my tastes.

It seems like along with a legitimate behind-the-scenes look which is great, we're also given renewed attempts to paint events and fan criticism in an inaccurate light. It feels a little like someone trying to get an "official" last word in an argument.

(I also don't like the constant use of "we" throughout when it's clearly "I" in most of those cases. What's up with that? )

Overall, I just don't buy the excuse that "Everyone hates new stuff, but eventually they accept it."
The implication here is to dismiss fan criticism of the writing as if we are all inherently biased.
But considering the widespread lukewarm reception of the bios, I have a hard time believing that THAT many fans are so biased.

And it's not a personal thing either.
Just as ANY fan who tries their hand at a personal take on MotU, there's going to be a fair accounting and honest feedback.
Be it artwork, fanfic, custom figures, or whatever, this community has always been great at constructive and supportive feedback.
So IMO it's quite unfair to dismiss the bio criticisms wholesale when to me MotU fans aren't anything but OPEN to cool new ideas.

So that said, it's not because we're blind fans who only want things one way. A lot of us (like myself) are totally up in the air as far as what could make for cool MotU stories. Many of us aren't tied down by any canon, be it Filmation, or MYP, or anything. We'd be totally open to anything that's well-told and thoughtfully constructed. Unfortunately for a BIG percentage of the fan base, they don't feel that's being achieved with the bios.

And yes, we absolutely understand that MOTUC had a small budget to work with, but countless MotU fans out there (many of them with years of professional experience in creative writing) would have donated their services for the low, low price of exactly zero dollars. There's a lot of help to be had out there if it was simply requested!

Holy cow! This was it!!!!! Here were (what I found our later were copies of) the actual original sketches from Mark Taylor of the main characters that would be in MOTU! I couldn’t believe that I was the first person in decades to open this envelope. How could these gems possibly have been sitting in this box for so long? To quote Indy, “They should be in a museum!”

Am I the only one who found this bit (my bolding) a little disappointing?

Scott himself admits how the Power and Honor Catalog blew Mattel's own art book away, so clearly he now sees the value of having access to those materials and what an asset they can be. And if Scott had made an effort from Day 1 of MOTUC to involve the fan community much more directly via expert consultants, he would've had access to FAR more than just "copies" of art to use as inspiration for the line. And who knows what kind of cool stuff we would've seen in MOTUC as a result?

But unfortunately that just brings into focus this overriding mentality I'm feeling where it's like personal glory and getting credit is prioritized over a whole lot of other stuff that in the long run would make for not only better relations between Mattel and the fan community, but would also inevitably strengthen MotU as a brand.

I appreciate the effort and the inside look, but IMO these "Blogs" just strike me as too historical revisionist for my tastes.

It seems like along with a legitimate behind-the-scenes look which is great, we're also given renewed attempts to paint events and fan criticism in an inaccurate light. It feels a little like someone trying to get an "official" last word in an argument.

(I also don't like the constant use of "we" throughout when it's clearly "I" in most of those cases. What's up with that? )

Overall, I just don't buy the excuse that "Everyone hates new stuff, but eventually they accept it."
The implication here is to dismiss fan criticism of the writing as if we are all inherently biased.
But considering the widespread lukewarm reception of the bios, I have a hard time believing that THAT many fans are so biased.

And it's not a personal thing either.
Just as ANY fan who tries their hand at a personal take on MotU, there's going to be a fair accounting and honest feedback.
Be it artwork, fanfic, custom figures, or whatever, this community has always been great at constructive and supportive feedback.
So IMO it's quite unfair to dismiss the bio criticisms wholesale when to me MotU fans aren't anything but OPEN to cool new ideas.

So that said, it's not because we're blind fans who only want things one way. A lot of us (like myself) are totally up in the air as far as what could make for cool MotU stories. Many of us aren't tied down by any canon, be it Filmation, or MYP, or anything. We'd be totally open to anything that's well-told and thoughtfully constructed. Unfortunately for a BIG percentage of the fan base, they don't feel that's being achieved with the bios.

And yes, we absolutely understand that MOTUC had a small budget to work with, but countless MotU fans out there (many of them with years of professional experience in creative writing) would have donated their services for the low, low price of exactly zero dollars. There's a lot of help to be had out there if it was simply requested!

Am I the only one who found this bit (my bolding) a little disappointing?

Scott himself admits how the Power and Honor Catalog blew Mattel's own art book away, so clearly he now sees the value of having access to those materials and what an asset they can be. And if Scott had made an effort from Day 1 of MOTUC to involve the fan community much more directly via expert consultants, he would've had access to FAR more than just "copies" of art to use as inspiration for the line. And who knows what kind of cool stuff we would've seen in MOTUC as a result?

But unfortunately that just brings into focus this overriding mentality I'm feeling where it's like personal glory and getting credit is prioritized over a whole lot of other stuff that in the long run would make for not only better relations between Mattel and the fan community, but would also inevitably strengthen MotU as a brand.

I offered to share original production designs and concept outlines from the 1980 meetings with the boys toys heads but was told and I quote "we aren't interested in such material at this time"- maybe I'll donate it to the PAHF where I know they'd appreciate it. The point of this is that they have been offered work but don't publicly mention that they have. (on a side note: I won't mention names but several original names who worked on the original series have numerous amounts of times offered to provide Mattel with concept art and we're told the same thing- wonder why they don't want to be more involved with MOTUC now huh? :P).

Am I the only one who found this bit (my bolding) a little disappointing?

Well, Scott wasn't aware those were just laser photocopies (old, but they can't be that old, since they are color copies) He believed they were originals.
I can complete that part of the story, and mind you, not to mock Scott, but to stress your other point below.
Anyway, we were meeting with him for other reasons, and Scott pulled those photocopies from the envelope and proudly showed them to me. They were really cool, no doubt about that.
I looked at them and said: cool but those are just photocopies: we (the PAHF) got the original Red Beast!
So he found out. They are still very cool and important, as the originals of Demo Man and Vikor have yet to resurface, but I haven't given up my hopes yet, we're still looking!

Scott himself admits how the Power and Honor Catalog blew Mattel's own art book away, so clearly he now sees the value of having access to those materials and what an asset they can be. And if Scott had made an effort from Day 1 of MOTUC to involve the fan community much more directly via expert consultants, he would've had access to FAR more than just "copies" of art to use as inspiration for the line. And who knows what kind of cool stuff we would've seen in MOTUC as a result?

And that is a great point. It may not be known that all the stuff in the PAHF Catalog had been offered to Scott years before, to make a book together. And offered to him again, at least 2 times over the years. I never got a plain refusal. We have just been ignored.

But unfortunately that just brings into focus this overriding mentality I'm feeling where it's like personal glory and getting credit is prioritized over a whole lot of other stuff that in the long run would make for not only better relations between Mattel and the fan community, but would also inevitably strengthen MotU as a brand.

And that is a great point. It may not be known that all the stuff in the PAHF Catalog had been offered to Scott years before, to make a book together. And offered to him again, at least 2 times over the years. I never got a plain refusal. We have just been ignored.

I was reading this and couldn't help but think. Did you ask Val to mention this to Toyguru for the Roast Gooble podcast? Or is it not really worth asking in your eyes? For whatever reason.

I was reading this and couldn't help but think. Did you ask Val to mention this to Toyguru for the Roast Gooble podcast? Or is it not really worth asking in your eyes? For whatever reason.

To ask why he passed on that stuff for years? If I was really curious, I would just email Scott myself.
Being 100% honest: at one point the answer was (exact words): "yeah, send me all you have" (up to SDCC 2011), which, of course couldn't happen.

To ask why he passed on that stuff for years? If I was really curious, I would just email Scott myself.
Being 100% honest: at one point the answer was (exact words): "yeah, send me all you have" (up to SDCC 2011), which, of course couldn't happen.

To ask why he passed on that stuff for years? If I was really curious, I would just email Scott myself.
Being 100% honest: at one point the answer was (exact words): "yeah, send me all you have" (up to SDCC 2011), which, of course couldn't happen.

Fair enough. I expected it might have been a redundant question, but thanks anyway for answering candidly.

MOTUC Director's Commentary Episode 3: Beast Wars!

All of these figures were sculpted at the same time for the original 2-pack concept. But for the sake of blogging, I will try to split them up into separate rants.
When these figures were tooled, we had yet to sell a single one.

There isn’t much I can say on how they influenced future figures, but I can chat a bit more about the line kicking off. One thing to talk about at this time is the period between July 2008 and November 2008 when the first six figures were being sculpted by the boys in Jersey. I took this time to immerse myself in MOTU lore and history to be ready should the first six figures prove successful and lead to a full line.

The first thing I did was request every box of work I could from the Mattel archives that the “founders” of the MOTU line worked on. Using a short list of names of former employees I knew were attached to the original MOTU pitch in 1979/1980, I requested all of the work that anyone who worked on the original pitch had in our archives from pre-1982 product launch (i.e., design work, not post-launch work).
What I got back was 11 very old dusty security sealed boxes full of 99% paperwork.

I hijacked an empty locked conference room and stuffed all of the boxes under a free table. Then each week for the next four months I would pull out one box and go through it item by item, piece of paper by piece of paper.

Well, 95% of what was in these boxes had nothing to do with anything MOTU. It was mostly design briefs, memos, and proposal documents for a variety of late ’70s, early ’80s toy lines and pitches. To say there was a lot of dust involved was also an understatement. By the third week (and third box), I was using gloves and a Mattel art smock I borrowed from the guys in the Chemical Lab.
Slowly I went through each box.

As I said, most of it was useless for MOTU research, but I did find some amazing gems. One box had tons of prelim notes and research material on what would make a good boys’ toy line. I even found the original letter from then-Mattel president Ray Wagner calling for a meeting to discuss a new boys’ action play line (you can see this letter in the 2009 SDCC art book — in fact, most of everything I found wound up in the art book). The conference was actually being held at the Hacienda Hotel, which is almost literally across the street from the current Mattel HQ in El Segundo, but at the time in 1979 was a bit of a drive from the former Hawthorne HQ off the 405 Freeway.

Anyway, this was about the third or fourth week and I hadn’t found much useful at this point, but there at the very bottom of a dusty box was a manila envelope simply labeled “Fantasy/Monster” in faded pencil.
My heart stopped.

What could this be? Could this actually be something related to the creation of MOTU? OMG!

I slowly pulled the envelope out and laid it on the table of my empty conference room. Unhooked the brass tabs (that clearly had not been touched in 20 years.
Inside were three pieces of paper.

Holy cow! This was it!!!!! Here were (what I found out later were copies of) the actual original sketches from Mark Taylor of the main characters that would be in MOTU – He-Man, Skeletor and Beast Man! I very distinctly remember pulling out the figures you may know better as Vikor, Demo-Man and Red Beast. I couldn’t believe I was the first person in decades to open this envelope. How could these gems possibly have been sitting in this box for so long? To quote Indy, “They should be in a museum!”
After weeks of dead ends, this was hitting the Mother Lode.

I just stared and stared at these pencil colors for an hour, blown away by what I had just unearthed from the Mattel archives. I had hit pay dirt.

This process continued for the next few weeks. I found a lot more items in my search, and pretty much EVERYTHING I found (which wasn’t much) wound up in the 2009 art book. (One item that did not wind up in the book was a series of photos and sketches of the Gygor concepts. Eventually these would be used to make the Gygor figure. It was cool that some fans sites also had this image, too, but we did find them ourselves well before they were forwarded along. (More on this when I get to Gygor later.) It was clear some of the really good stuff wasn’t around anymore (or at least I couldn’t find it) but there were quite a few gems, including a lot of handwritten notes about “Monster/Fantasy” toys, and even a few documents from early 1980 that mention He-Man and MOTU by name. Very cool.
I spent weeks reviewing all of these boxes and categorizing everything.

I made copious notes of every item I pulled out, which box it came from, what it was and what it signified. I had no idea what I might use any of this for, but something told me, “Find everything you can!”

In the six months of development, not only did I pull all of these boxes from the archives, but I used the time to re-familiarize myself with MOTU lore. I re-watched every episode of every series, re-read ever mini comic, DC comic, Marvel comic, Image comic and so forth. (The He-Man.org guys were nice enough to send me samples of all of their MVP comics since I only had a few issues in my personal collection.)
I used this time to start to draw up master plans.

It was very important that if MOTU Classics (as we were now calling this line) was going to go for the long haul, we needed a road map to get us through a few years (more on this when we get to Stratos). That was around the time the master plans and bios started taking shape.

Back to Beast Man specifically. He was developed at the same time as the other “first six” figures that were originally meant to be 2-packs. It should be noted that these first six figures were actually a bit expensive, tooling-wise. While we have really only been able to do one to two newly tooled figures per year, right out of the gate we had to tool three complete body types: Human (paid for with King Grayskull) Beast (Beast Man, Stratos) and Reptile (Skeletor). So the first six figures actually wound up eating a lot of our tooling budget.

But we positioned this to management as an investment. If it paid off we would be able to do a year’s worth of figures with very minimal tooling after this. Luckily, this was a gamble that definitely paid off.
Beast Man, Stratos, and Zodac had only one accessory – or none!

This was essentially because they were envisioned as 2-packs and not as single figures that needed a minimum number of accessories. Fans still point out the lack of accessories (especially with Stratos, who had none). All I can say is that these first six fell under different “rules” compared to all of the figures after them. It wasn’t a lack of caring, we just weren’t looking at them as a long term line yet and essentially were just mimicking the vintage figures’ accessories for the first six. If the vintage figure had one accessory, the new figure got one. If he had none (like Stratos) the Classics figure got none. We were not being cheap; we were just mimicking the vintage line, even down to the accessories. Eventually, when the line took off, we made it a self-imposed “rule” to try and give each figure at least two accessories. End of mystery!
Beast Man had a few other issues.

Hong Kong mixed up his and Stratos’ belts on the cross-sell (we even had some incorrectly assembled Stratos figures show up on eBay, which freaked everyone out). But we did catch this and quickly made the change, although we were unable to make the change to the cross-sell image right away.

This was also before we started matching the cross-sell images and packouts to the vintage cross-sell pose/packout. Long-time fans will note that (for the most part) we tried to match packouts and cross-sell poses to the vintage toy. But during the development of the first six figures, this wasn’t something we had thought of yet (we were just happy to be making MOTU figures at all!) and essentially all of our efforts were going into just making six figures (knowing that the line might just end at six figures and that would be it).

It really wasn’t until Stratos’ quick sell-out that we knew we had a hit on our hands. There was a lot more MOTUC to come, but at the time, we were just excited to be getting six figures out there!
Oh, one last note on Beast Man is to talk about his “real name.”

While the full bio “storyline” and the actual bios for the next six years would not be written until Stratos’ quick sell out and we knew we were in this for the long haul, we did want to make sure the original six bios worked on their own.

One thing that is very common in toy bios is to provide “real names” for characters. Some characters in MOTU lore already had very established real names (Adam, Duncan, Keldor, etc.). But for others, we felt that “Beast Man” or “Spikor” was much more of a description of the character (like a code name, like “Snake Eyes”)). So (at least for the first six) we decided to issue real names for the first time for characters that had descriptive names (come on, we know his mother did not name him “Beast Man!”). This was really the first time we added anything to the “lore” that was new.
There wasn’t an overarching rule on how the real names were created.

Really, they were handled on a character-by-character basis. We also knew that ANY new info (be it info in the bio or the real name) would be controversial with long-time fans. But as with any new info, we hoped fans would come to embrace it in time. Hey, remember when it was revealed in 2003 or 2004-ish that Keldor was Skeletor’s real name and he was in fact Adam’s uncle? Fans HATED this.

But like most changes, in time fans grew to accept these new facts and even embrace and defend them. Nowadays, if you tell someone Keldor is not Randor’s brother, you will get flamed yourself! What was controversial eventually becomes lore. Some hard core fans just don’t like change, but tend to accept it in time. We were well aware of this going in and fully expected the reaction we got. No big surprise as we know how passionate MOTU fans are.

Raqquill Rqazz specifically was created as Beast Man’s real name because it was designed to mimic his people’s voice and beastly language. It was also designed to sound vicious in nature (Ra-KILL Ra-Kazzz). Love it or hate it, we had a “real name” and were ready to unleash it on the public (fully aware this added element to the lore would be extremely controversial at first).

So that is about it for Beast Man, his figure and bio/real name. I’ll be back to jump into Skeletor next as we started to head towards our on-sale date and what would be the edge of a knife whether this new line would find an audience and, more importantly, if that audience would be big enough to support the line!